Spitting image

A spitting image is an exact likeness as in ‘he is the spitting image of his father’ and first appears in this format from c.1901. Before this, the expression used to be “he is the spit and image of his father’ and before that, from the early 19th century, the expression was ‘he is the very spit of his father’. Thus, the progression is ‘spit’ to ‘spit and image’ to finally ‘spitting image’ over a period of about one hundred years.